Московский государственный университет

имени М.В. Ломоносова

Факультет иностранных языков и регионоведения

Дневное отделение магистратуры

Направление: Лингвистика

Студентка Большакова Татьяна Олеговна

Реферат

Тема: Propaganda techniques

Москва
2021
 Propaganda is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people’s beliefs,
attitudes, or actions by means of symbols (words, gestures, banners, monuments, music,
clothing, insignia, hairstyles, designs on coins and postage stamps, and so forth). Deliberateness
and a relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual
conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas. Propagandists have a specified goal or set of
goals. To achieve these, they deliberately select facts, arguments, and displays of symbols and
present them in ways they think will have the most effect. To maximize effect, they may omit or
distort pertinent facts or simply lie, and they may try to divert the attention of the reactors (the
people they are trying to sway) from everything but their own propaganda.

Comparatively deliberate selectivity and manipulation also distinguish propaganda from

education. Educators try to present various sides of an issue—the grounds for doubting as well as
the grounds for believing the statements they make, and the disadvantages as well as the
advantages of every conceivable course of action. Education aims to induce reactors to collect
and evaluate evidence for themselves and assists them in learning the techniques for doing so. It
must be noted, however, that some propagandists may look upon themselves as educators and
may believe that they are uttering the purest truth, that they are emphasizing or distorting certain
aspects of the truth only to make a valid message more persuasive, or that the courses of action
that they recommend are in fact the best actions that the reactor could take. By the same token,
the reactor who regards the propagandist’s message as self-evident truth may think of it as
educational; this often seems to be the case with “true believers”—dogmatic reactors to dogmatic
religious, social, or political propaganda. “Education” for one person may be “propaganda” for
another.Propaganda becomes ineffective the moment we are aware of it.

The most common properties of propaganda are:

• It will appeal to emotions;

• It must be as simple as possible so everyone can understand it;

• The message may be reduced to a slogan;

• It will be constantly repeated;

• It will use stereotyped phrasing;

• It will give only one side of a story;

• It will point out a "villain" to attack;

• It will criticize and attack its opponents;

 • It will use distinctive phrases or slogans to label people or events;

• It will evoke emotional responses from the people's own backgrounds;

• Cultural symbols will be used to obtain emotional responses.

The word propaganda itself, as used in recent centuries, apparently derives from the title
and work of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagation of the Faith), an
organization of Roman Catholic cardinals founded in 1622 to carry on missionary work. To
many Roman Catholics the word may therefore have, at least in missionary or ecclesiastical
terms, a highly respectable connotation. But even to these persons, and certainly to many others,
the term is often a pejorative one tending to connote such things as the discredited atrocity
stories and deceptively stated war aims of World Wars I and II, the operations of the Nazis’
Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and the broken campaign promises of a
thousand politicians. Also, it is reminiscent of countless instances of false and misleading
advertising (especially in countries using Latin languages, in which propagande commerciale or
some equivalent is a common term for commercial advertising).

To informed students of the history of communism, the term propaganda has yet another
connotation, associated with the term agitation. The two terms were first used by the Russian
theorist of Marxism Georgy Plekhanov and later elaborated upon by Vladimir Ilich Lenin in a
pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), in which he defined “propaganda” as the reasoned use of
historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened (the attentive and
informed publics, in the language of today’s social sciences); he defined “agitation” as the use of
slogans, parables, and half-truths to exploit the grievances of the uneducated and the
unreasonable. Since he regarded both strategies as absolutely essential to political victory, he
combined them in the term agitprop. Every unit of historical communist parties had an agitprop
section, and to the communist the use of propaganda in Lenin’s sense was commendable and
honest. Thus, a standard Soviet manual for teachers of social sciences was entitled Propagandistu
politekonomii (For the Propagandist of Political Economy), and a pocket-sized booklet issued
weekly to suggest timely slogans and brief arguments to be used in speeches and conversations
among the masses was called Bloknot agitatora (The Agitator’s Notebook).

Related to the general sense of propaganda is the concept of “propaganda of the deed.”
This denotes taking nonsymbolic action (such as economic or coercive action), not for its direct
effects but for its possible propagandistic effects. Examples of propaganda of the deed would
include staging an atomic “test” or the public torture of a criminal for its presumable deterrent
effect on others, or giving foreign “economic aid” primarily to influence the recipient’s opinions
or actions and without much intention of building up the recipient’s economy.

Distinctions are sometimes made between overt propaganda, in which the propagandists
and perhaps their backers are made known to the reactors, and covert propaganda, in which the
sources are secret or disguised. Covert propaganda might include such things as political
advertisements that are unsigned or signed with false names, clandestine radio stations using
false names, and statements by editors, politicians, or others who have been secretly bribed by
governments, political backers, or business firms. Sophisticated diplomatic negotiation, legal
argument, collective bargaining, commercial advertising, and political campaigns are of course
quite likely to include considerable amounts of both overt and covert propaganda, accompanied
by propaganda of the deed.

Another term related to propaganda is psychological warfare (sometimes abbreviated to

psychwar), which is the prewar or wartime use of propaganda directed primarily at confusing or
demoralizing enemy populations or troops, putting them off guard in the face of coming attacks,
or inducing them to surrender. The related concept of political warfare encompasses the use of
propaganda, among many other techniques, during peacetime to intensify social and political
divisions and to sow confusion within the societies of adversary states.

Still another related concept is that of brainwashing. The term usually means intensive
political indoctrination. It may involve long political lectures or discussions, long compulsory
reading assignments, and so forth, sometimes in conjunction with efforts to reduce the reactor’s
resistance by exhausting him either physically through torture, overwork, or denial of sleep or
psychologically through solitary confinement, threats, emotionally disturbing confrontations
with interrogators or defected comrades, humiliation in front of fellow citizens, and the like. The
term brainwashing was widely used in sensational journalism to refer to such activities (and to
many other activities) as they were allegedly conducted by Maoists in China and elsewhere.

Another related word, advertising, has mainly commercial connotations, though it need
not be restricted to this; political candidates, party programs, and positions on political issues
may be “packaged” and “marketed” by advertising firms. The words promotion and public
relations have wider, vaguer connotations and are often used to avoid the implications of
“advertising” or “propaganda.” “Publicity” and “publicism” often imply merely making a subject
known to a public, without educational, propagandistic, or commercial intent.

Contemporary propagandists with money and imagination can use a very wide range of
signs, symbols, and media to convey their messages. Signs are simply stimuli—“information
bits” capable of stimulating, in some way, the human organism. These include sounds, such as
words, music, or a 21-gun salvo; gestures (a military salute, a thumbed nose); postures (a weary
slump, folded arms, a sit-down, an aristocratic bearing); structures (a monument, a building);
items of clothing (a uniform, a civilian suit); visual signs (a poster, a flag, a picket sign, a badge,
a printed page, a commemorative postage stamp, a swastika scrawled on a wall); and so on and
on.

A symbol is a sign having a particular meaning for a given reactor. Two or more reactors
may of course attach quite different meanings to the same symbol. Thus, to Nazis the swastika
was a symbol of racial superiority and the crushing military might of the German Volk; to some
Asiatic and North American peoples it is a symbol of universal peace and happiness. Some
Christians who find a cross reassuring may find a hammer and sickle displeasing and may derive
no religious satisfaction at all from a Muslim crescent, a Hindu cow, or a Buddhist lotus.

The contemporary propagandist can employ elaborate social-scientific research facilities,

unknown in previous epochs, to conduct opinion surveys and psychological interviews in efforts
to learn the symbolic meanings of given signs for given reactors around the world and to
discover what signs leave given reactors indifferent because, to them, these signs are without
meaning.

Media are the means—the channels—used to convey signs and symbols to the intended
reactor or reactors. A comprehensive inventory of media used in 20th- and 21st-century
propaganda could cover many pages. Electronic media include e-mail, blogs, Web- or
application (app)-based social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and
electronic versions of originally printed media such as newspapers, magazines, and books.
Printed media include, in addition to those just mentioned, letters, handbills, posters, billboards,
and handwriting on walls and streets. Among audiovisual media, the Internet and television may
be the most powerful for many purposes. Both can convey a great many types of signs
simultaneously; they can gain heavy impact from mutually reinforcing gestures, words, postures,
and sounds and a background of symbolically significant leaders, celebrities, historic settings,
architectures, flags, music, placards, maps, uniforms, insignia, cheering or jeering mobs or studio
audiences, and staged assemblies of prestigious or powerful people. Other audiovisual media
include public speakers, movies, theatrical productions, marching bands, mass demonstrations,
picketing, face-to-face conversations between individuals, and “talking” exhibits at fairs,
expositions, and art shows.
 The larger the propaganda enterprise, the more important are such mass media as the
Internet and television and also the organizational media—that is, pressure groups set up under
leaders and technicians who are skilled in using many sorts of signs and media to convey
messages to particular reactors. Vast systems of diverse organizations can be established in the
hope of reaching leaders and followers of all groups (organized and unorganized) in a given area,
such as a city, region, nation or coalition of nations, or the entire world. Pressure organizations
are especially necessary, for example, in closely fought sales campaigns or political elections,
especially in socially heterogeneous areas that have extremely divergent regional traditions,
ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and educational levels and very unequal income distributions.
Diversities of these sorts make it necessary for products to be marketed in local terms and for
political candidates to appear to be friends of each of perhaps a dozen or more mutually hostile
ethnic groups, of the educated and the uneducated, and of the very wealthy as well as the
poverty-stricken.

A Red Herring is a piece of information that misleads or distracts the reader (and
sometimes the character) from an important truth or leads them to mistakenly expect one
outcome over another. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, both the reader and the
characters are led to believe that Sirius Black is the story’s main villain. (Besides Voldemort, of
course.) Here’s what readers learn about Sirius Black:

1. Twelve years ago, there was a Fidelus Charm on the Potter’s house to keep their
location a secret. Someone betrayed their location to Voldemort which directly led to
Jame’s and Lily’s murder. Most people believe that it was Sirius Black who betrayed
James and Lily to Voldemort.
2. Sirius Black was in Godric’s Hollow on the night of Harry’s parent’s murder. He was
sentenced to life in Azkaban for the murder of 12 Muggles and a wizard named Peter
Pettigrew. The murder was said to be so violent and messy that all authorities could
find of Pettigrew was a bloodstained robe and a few fragments of a finger.
3. Lately, while in Azkaban, Sirius has been heard murmuring, “He’s at Hogwarts,” in
his sleep. It is believed that Sirius wants to kill Harry in order to finish what
Voldemort started.
4. Sirius Black has never tried to escape from Azkaban prison until now. His escape
coincides with the Weasley’s return home from Egypt.
5. Sirius Black is Harry Potter’s godfather.

So, based on those five things, Sirius Black looks like a pretty convincing bad guy, right?
Turns out, Sirius Black isn’t out to get Harry at all. He’s actually trying to protect Harry from the
person who’s truly responsible for the death of Harry’s parents–Peter Pettigrew. In other words,
Sirius Black is a Red Herring. So, now let’s look at everything readers learn about Ron’s pet rat,
Scabbers (and how each clue points to the truth about Peter Pettigrew): Here’s what readers learn
about Scabbers:

1. Scabbers has been in the Weasley family for twelve years. (Harry’s parents were
killed twelve years ago, the night Peter Pettigrew was “murdered.”)
2. Scabbers has been acting strange since the Weasleys got home from Egypt. (Peter
Pettigrew learns that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban and that he’s been
muttering, “He’s at Hogwarts” –“he” being Peter Pettigrew, not Harry.)
3. Ron buys a rat tonic to help Scabbers feel better, but it doesn’t work. (Scabbers isn’t
actually a rat. He’s a human, living his life in his Animagus form as a rat.)
4. Scabbers is missing a toe on his front paw. (The only thing left of Peter Pettigrew was
his finger.)
5. The Sneakoscope goes off twice when Scabbers is around (first when Ron’s packing
it up, second when Crookshanks is picking on Scabbers). (The Sneakoscope is a “dark
detector” that lights up, spins, and whistles when someone is doing something
untrustworthy.)
6. Scabbers is constantly hiding, missing, or running away from Ron. (Peter Pettigrew
knows Sirius Black is looking for him so he’s doing whatever he can to get away
from Hogwarts.)

As you can see, J.K. Rowling gave readers all the clues needed to figure out that Scabbers
is actually Peter Pettigrew hidden in plain sight. Wherever one of these clues was laid, Rowling
used different techniques to distract the reader from the truth. For example, when the
Sneakoscope goes off, Crookshanks has just been chasing Scabbers around the room. Readers
might interpret the Sneakoscope sounding off because Crookshanks is “misbehaving.” Or they
might dismiss this bit of information entirely–chalking the whole thin up to “typical cat
behavior.”

The hext technique to look at is name-calling.

"'Un-American' is a favorite name-calling device to stain the reputation of someone who

disagrees with official policies and positions. It conjures up old red-baiting techniques that stifle
free speech and dissent on public issues. It creates a chilling effect on people to stop testing the
waters of our democratic right to question the motives of our government."
(Nancy Snow, Information War: American Propaganda, Free Speech and Opinion Control Since
9-11. Seven Stories, 2003)

Plain folks

By using the plain-folks technique, speakers attempt to convince their audience that they,
and their ideas, are “of the people.” The device is used by advertisers and politicians alike.
America’s recent presidents have all been affluent, but they have gone to great lengths to present
themselves as ordinary citizens. Bill Clinton ate at McDonald’s and confessed a fondness for
trashy spy novels. George Bush Sr. hated broccoli, and loved to fish. Ronald Reagan was often
photographed chopping wood, and Jimmy Carter presented himself as a humble peanut farmer
from Georgia.

Non-denial denial.

The most ludicrous but nevertheless most memorable post-Nixon non-denial denial has
got to be President Bill Clinton’s finger-waggling statement. “I want to say one thing to the
American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual
relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”.

Testimonial

Important or well-know people endorse the product e.g. a famous basketball player
(Michael Jordan) recommends a particular brand of skates. The most common misuse of the
testimonial involves citing individuals who are not qualified to make judgements about a
particular issue. In 2016, Lady Gaga supported Hillary Clinton, and Clint Eastwood threw his
weight behind Donald Trump. Both are popular performers, but there is no reason to think that
Lady Gaga and Clint Eastwood necessarily know what is best for the United States.

Cherry picking

Cherry picking is frequently used in political discourse. For example, consider the
following statement: Politician: our new educational program was highly successful, since it
improved students’ math scores! This would be considered cherry picking in a situation where
the new program also led to a decrease in students’ scores in various other domains (such as
English and science), or in a situation where the improvement was only evident in a small
proportion of the schools where it was implemented (e.g. only in 1 out of 30).